In the Wilderness

March 10, 2019 Year C Luke 4:1-13 In the Wilderness First Sunday of Lent Children’s Time 1 - a credit card, a crown, a star Children’s Time 2 Object: Some packages of chewing gum. Lesson: Good morning, boys and girls! How are you today? Did you know that this is the first Sunday in Lent? (Let them answer.) Did you know that this is the time when we begin to think a lot about the way that Jesus shared himself with us by dying for our sins? (Let them answer.) That's the truth. Lent is the time for you and me to spend some time thinking of Jesus and giving thanks to him for all of the good things that he did for us. One of the things that he did was to teach us to be strong against the devil and all of his evil ways. The devil is always trying to get us to forget God and to think only about ourselves. That seems to be easy. All of us like ourselves, and we spend a lot of time trying to make ourselves look good. It is easy to think of ourselves first. I want to show you how hard it is to keep from being this way. We call it denying. When you deny yourself something you are supposed to think of others and of God. That is one of the things you should do during Lent. But the devil is tempting you all of the time to think only of yourself and to forget God and others. Let me show you what I mean. I have some chewing gum here which I want everyone to have, but there aren't enough pieces for everyone. I know that there are 25 children here, but I only have 10 pieces of gum. What should I do? Should I just keep it all so that no one will be disappointed? If I gave it to 10 people would that mean that 15 of you would be disappointed? What should I do? What is your suggestion? (Let them answer. Keep working until you have total agreement that it should be divided in some way so that everyone has some even if there is some left over. The temptation here is that some would like to have it all for themselves, while others would like to give it only to the big kids and forget the little ones, etc.) Do you see what temptation does to us? It can make us forget about anything but ourselves. The devil tried to get Jesus to forget about his heavenly Father and to become his disciple. He promised Jesus everything in the world including all of the riches and power, but Jesus would not be tempted. He turned the devil down and thought first of God. You are tempted every day to think only of yourself. That is the devil working on you. Deny the devil by denying yourself, and your life will be made full by God. Amen. CSS Publishing Company, Making A Parade for Jesus, by Wesley T. Runk Luke 4:1-13 Common English Bible (CEB) Jesus’ temptation 4 Jesus returned from the Jordan River full of the Holy Spirit, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. 2 There he was tempted for forty days by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and afterward Jesus was starving. 3 The devil said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” 4 Jesus replied, “It’s written, People won’t live only by bread.”[a] 5 Next the devil led him to a high place and showed him in a single instant all the kingdoms of the world. 6 The devil said, “I will give you this whole domain and the glory of all these kingdoms. It’s been entrusted to me and I can give it to anyone I want. 7 Therefore, if you will worship me, it will all be yours.” 8 Jesus answered, “It’s written, You will worship the Lord your God and serve only him.”[b] 9 The devil brought him into Jerusalem and stood him at the highest point of the temple. He said to him, “Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down from here; 10 for it’s written: He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you 11 and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone.[c]” 12 Jesus answered, “It’s been said, Don’t test the Lord your God.”[d]13 After finishing every temptation, the devil departed from him until the next opportunity. Footnotes: a. Luke 4:4 Deut 8:3 b. Luke 4:8 Deut 6:13 c. Luke 4:11 Ps 91:11-12 d. Luke 4:12 Deut 6:16 Common English Bible (CEB) Copyright © 2011 by Common English Bible Lent: Spring Training For Christians When I was a boy, I was told, "Baptists don't do Lent." No one knew why. I suspect that it was an anti-Catholic thing which I pray we are over. It was the old argument, "whatever they do, we don't!" - a curiously convoluted, twisted and unhealthy way to decide on religious practices. Whatever the reason for "not doing Lent," I think it is a great loss for any Christian not to prepare for Good Friday and Easter. Every spring the baseball players prepare for the season with spring training; every spring ordinary people prepare for summer by doing "spring cleaning." So why shouldn't Christians prepare for the most important events in Jesus' ministry - what he did for us on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, what he did for us on Golgotha's cross and at the empty tomb? If it helps you, think of Lent as a kind of Christian spring training and spring cleaning. John Ewing Roberts, Remembering and Forgetting On the first Sunday of lent – we are reminded of the 40 days that Jesus spent in the wilderness. Jesus was baptized, the sky opens and said this is my beloved son. Luke 4 opens by saying Jesus full of the holy spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the spirit in the wilderness, where for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. Now I want us to look at that verse for ourselves, because it says that holy spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. And you will notice in Luke wherever, Jesus is – the holy spirit has led him there. Luke likes to focus on the spiritual life of Jesus. In every lesson from Luke we see that Jesus prays, he talks regularly with God. Why is Jesus talking to the devil? And yet interestingly enough in this verse he is not talking to God. who is he talking to? He is talking with the devil. If Jesus is the son of God, and he prays, and he follows the spirit- then why would he be talking with the devil? He talks to the devil – because he knows that the devil talks to us – daily. God sends his son to earth to live our life, to have our concerns, to even die our death. Because between God and the devil is the life we live every day. Every day we face sin, evil, the devil and death. Jesus engaged each of those threats to our faith, so that we would have the strength to overcome them each and every time that they come along. Jesus first day of work The local sheriff was looking for a deputy, and one of the applicants - who was not known to be the brightest academically, was called in for an interview. "Okay," began the sheriff, "What is 1 and 1?" "Eleven," came the reply. The sheriff thought to himself, "That's not what I meant, but he's right." Then the sheriff asked, "What two days of the week start with the letter 'T'?" "Today & tomorrow." Replied the applicant. The sheriff was again surprised over the answer, one that he had never thought of himself. "Now, listen carefully, who killed Abraham Lincoln?", asked the sheriff. The job seeker seemed a little surprised, then thought really hard for a minute and finally admitted, "I don't know." The sheriff replied, "Well, why don't you go home and work on that one for a while?" The applicant left and wandered over to his pals who were waiting to hear the results of the interview. He greeted them with a cheery smile, "The job is mine! The interview went great! First day on the job and I'm already working on a murder case!" In our Gospel reading this morning in Luke 4 it is Jesus' first day on the job. Immediately he is confronted with three major temptations. And he is confronted with this basic question: Would he take the crown without the cross? These are the most basic temptations in life and they form the foundation for all other temptations… The problems of temptations We always start our lent conversation with the subject of temptations. Because temptations are the biggest threat to our trust, faith and loyalty to God. First, recognize that we are most vulnerable when, like Jesus, we are stretched to our limits. Exhausted, hungry, weak, beaten down by deadlines, stressed out by the demands that pull us in every direction -- if we cannot keep our lives in order, if we do not put Christ on the throne in the center of our lives, if we neglect the rest that God has given us in the sabbath, we are asking for trouble. Even the King of kings and Lord of lords had to face temptation when he was famished and exhausted Temptations of being a self proclaimed leader The three temptations that Jesus encountered in Luke 4 was first to turn stone into bread, to force all of the world to worship him and live a dangerous life and let God save him from his own mistakes. I thought that it was interesting that one commentator noted that Luke was attacking the leaders of the day. The emperor of Rome would have been tempted to have others bow to him and to serve him and to go as far as worship him – and Jesus tell the devil in each instance that one who is loyal, trusting and faithful to God does not need to give in to those temptations. Temptations are things that stand in the way of serving God I would say that is what temptations are – things in our lives that stand in the way of us giving God the ultimate praise and glory in our lives. They are just obstacles for us to overcome. They remind us that we are all vulnerable, and if we are not aware of what makes us vulnerable – them we give in to sin. And yet the son of God, the one who prays to god, who talks to God about everything in his life – talks to the devil – so that we can rise above our temptations and move on the life under the cross. Devil does not go away Another interesting that about this scripture - - verse 13 says that when the devil had finished every test he departed from him until an opportune time. In other words the devil does not flee and go away. He just sits down to be quiet. If you continue to read about Jesus journey to save us – evil is lurking around somewhere in the scene. – just waiting for another chance to stand up and create a problem. And evil and temptation never leaves our life either. One of the greatest temptations of life is thinking that we have overcome our sins. They can always reappear in our lives, sometimes even as good intentions. Jesus talks to the devil not so that he can defeat the devil, but so that he can show us the way to overcome the effects of the devil. You can tell how big a person is by what it takes to discourage him. Temptation are those things which stand in the way of our faithfulness to God. our faithfulness to God is the only way for us to overcome temptation. Jesus was the son of God. but Jesus was also a model for us on how to follow God. We all struggle with temptations, but we all struggle with the question of how to do the right thing. I like this story, because it is a story about our doubts. We all have to deal with the question of who we are in life. What is our life about, and more important what is our ministry about – is it about serving ourselves, or others, is it about not paying attention to who is watching, or letting our life be an example, is it about fame and fortune or about humility, is it about being self sufficient, or obeying God’s will. Lent is our chance to think about those questions and to come up with an answer. I love this text, because Jesus intentionally went out into the wilderness to get answers. A friend of mine writes this poem about temptation OUR WILDERNESS Somewhere, sometime each one of us takes an unchosen path through the wilderness. Not the rocky, broken land, nor the frigid night winds, nor the terrible beasts, nor the parching thirst will frighten us most. But it is the loneliness, the utter fear that we are forgotten and that nothing makes sense-- this is the barrenness where we finally cry out, pray for love to find us. And then He comes. Life is like a wilderness, but we can choose to walk toward a powerful Easter morning. Let us pray…..